


losing my mind losing my mind losing control

by wolfstarheart



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Protective Tony Stark, Steve Needs a Hug, Steve Rogers Feels, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide, Tony Stark Has A Heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-29
Updated: 2017-08-29
Packaged: 2018-12-21 09:52:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11941626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wolfstarheart/pseuds/wolfstarheart
Summary: Steve is--He wouldn't say depressed. Or sad. That would imply that he's unhappy in a way that he usually isn't, which is blatantly untrue. He's always been this way.(Or Steve isn't dealing with stuff very well, and Tony listens).





	losing my mind losing my mind losing control

Steve is-- 

He wouldn't say  _depressed_. Or  _sad_. That would imply that he's unhappy in a way that he usually isn't, which is blatantly untrue. He's always been this way. 

But, see, that doesn't make it any easier to deal with. Steve breathes in, out, in, and holds it. Wonders when, exactly, his super soldier lungs would force themselves into exhaling. Sometimes he kind of misses how he was before the serum. Not... the pain, but the knowledge that he wasn't invincible.

He wonders if he'd ever die. He should ask Tony that, probably, and he'd get one of  _those_ looks that means that the genius can see right through him, but he'd get an explanation after they've run a few tests. He wonders if he'd be sad if Tony said,  _yeah, you're immortal, Capsicle, lucky you, huh?_ And wouldn't it be ironic, because it'd mean he'd be doomed to losing everyone right when he'd started to care about them. Outliving his friends and family until he's left there when the sun explodes and the universe caves in upon itself. 

And that's the problem, because Steve... doesn't _want_ to die. Not exactly. He has people now, people that don't replace his mother or the Howling Commandos or Bucky, but they're  _his_ people. His team, his friends, his partners in crime. And wouldn't it be cruel if he were to leave them the way everyone else left Steve?

His people. 

Natasha, who, despite her cool exterior, gives him concerned looks every time he does something stupid on a mission. (Which is so unfair, because  _Tony_ is always reckless and he'd get away with it if it wasn't for him). 

Bruce, who lends him books and shows him photos of his travels. 

Clint, who makes him listen to Katy Perry and Justin Timberlake and watch these god-awful movies. 

Sam, who never makes fun of his attempts to cook (most of the time, at least) and spars with him even when he knows it's a losing game. 

Tony, who... is towering over him right now. 

"Steve?" says the afore-mentioned man, peering down at him with a calculating look to his coffee-brown eyes. His shirt is tight against his chest and smells like grease, his jeans artfully scuffed and seared. Steve blinks up at him and tries to settle his features into a neutral expression. 

"Hey, Tony," says Steve. He makes no attempt to get up. 

Tony gives him a once-over, and, when he seems to conclude that Steve isn't on some kind of drug or about to pass out, sinks to the ground next to him. "Classy, this," Tony says airily, gesturing out at the balcony. His hair glows red in the sunset, and the wind picks up ever so slightly, making the hairs stand up on Steve's arms. "We do have pretty comfortable couches downstairs in the common room, you know."

"I know." Steve sighs.

That makes Tony stop. The calculating expression is back, and he picks Steve apart like he's one of his robots. (Sometimes Steve really does feel like a robot. A robot with soft blonde hair and muscles and a shield right out of one of those cheesy action flicks Clint's always making him watch, and he looks so perfect that everybody forgets that there's nothing actually inside of him. Just wires and emptiness.) "Why are you up here, Steve?"

"I like it," Steve whispers after a pause in which Tony's hands begin to fiddle with the fabric of his shirt, eyes still locked on Steve's with an unwavering steeliness that means he's not going to be able to get out of this conversation. "S' peaceful. Helps me think."

"About what?" Tony asks, and he rearranges himself so he's lying down next to Steve. His joints pop and Tony lets out a soft hiss-- "Damn it, I'm getting old, aren't I?"-- which is followed by a barked laugh and the dry chuckle that Steve manages in return. Steve looks up at the sky, at how the colors fade and turn into new shades before his eyes, blue to mauve to pink to navy, and thinks about how, before the serum, when he was sick, Bucky would crawl into bed beside him and wrap his arms around Steve's sweaty, shivering shoulders and promise him that he'd make it to the next sunset. Steve used to always want to ask,  _what if I don't want to?_ He never did, because Bucky needed the comfort more than he did, and he couldn't do that to him. But he thought it. Oh, yeah, he thought about it, probably too many times in a day, even when he was healthy (relatively speaking). "What's on your mind, Cap-- Steve?" 

"Is it bad," begins Steve, and his lungs are almost musty with the ghosts of thoughts that should've been left in the forties. "Is it bad that before--" 

"--Before the ice?" Tony asks, and then winces. "Sorry. No interrupting. Go on."

"No," Steve says slowly, almost glad that he'd said something, because it made it easier, in a way, when Tony was there making sure he wouldn't chicken out of this. "Well. Yeah. Before the ice, but... before the war, too." Tony's still looking at him intently, but his gaze has softened, and Steve keeps staring up at the sky. The moon's begun to peek out from behind sparse gray clouds now, a meek little crescent that glows anyway. Darkness begins to settle in, and shadows begin to flicker over his and Tony's bodies, marking another day that he's survived. And... that's a good thing, isn't it? "When I used to get sick, before the serum. Which...was pretty often, but you've read my file, so you probably know this already. So I was sick a lot."

Tony nods, and Steve grits his teeth. 

"And sometimes," he says, after a pause in which Tony doesn't pressure him or push him, despite the man's characteristic impatience, a pause in which he considers bolting (or pushing himself off that ledge just so he'd get out of talking about how he's sort of maybe suicidal, which would be hilarious, right?). "Sometimes we used to think I wouldn't make it. Me and Bucky, that is, after my Ma died."

"Boy, am I glad that modern medicine's a thing," says Tony, and he lets a corner of his mouth quirk up in a smile that fades as his heart rate begins to quicken. 

"Yeah, me too. But, you know, it was tough. I was always sick, and Bucky was always working, and whenever I'd get  _really_ bad he'd always look so scared-- and I." His throat's gone dry, and it's only sheer willpower that makes him continue, "I was always thinking, in the back of my mind, wouldn't it just be easier if it just happened? It felt-- it  _was_ inevitable, me dying. We both knew it would happen, and soon."

"Steve," begins Tony, but. But now he's doing this and he finds that he can't stop, and he can't bring himself to look the other man in the eyes so he's staring up at the stupid goddamn moon that sometimes feels like the only familiar thing in a world that's too bright and too mean to feel like home.

"Did you know," says Steve, a sort of bitter humor in his voice that turns his words ugly, "that when I was born, the doctors said I had a one percent chance of surviving? My Ma bought a patch of land for a grave, was ready to bury me, and instead I buried her in that same bit of land in the cemetery eighteen years later. And all the while, during the funeral, I was thinking: it shoulda been me down there, six feet under. Bucky woulda moved on, and there wasn't really anybody else, so, y'know?"

(It's not really a question, but Tony nods distantly anyway). 

"But I lived. Couldn't do that to him. And every time I'd get sick, I'd hope-- I'd hope, just this little, really weak part of me, that it would finally do me in. The scarlet fever, or the measles, or the chicken pox, or what have you... and then the serum happened, and I thought things would be better. They said things would be better." Steve hears the anger in his voice and takes a few shallow breaths before continuing, "and they were-- I don't mean to sound ungrateful. The serum let me fight, it let me serve this country, and it made me  _useful_. That was all I'd ever wanted. Except..." And Steve is back there in that room and they're running through the protocol for the serum and they're telling him that this would enhance everything about him, turn him into a perfect specimen, the pinnacle of human existence, "'cept when I woke up, and after that, when Bucky-- when he fell, the thoughts came back. Thought the serum woulda gotten rid of 'em, but I guess they were a part of me that even science couldn't fix."

He lets his muscles relax, realizing that he'd tensed up while talking, and almost instantly, his hands start trembling. Tony turns to look at Steve's arm, quivering ever so slightly beside him, and an apology's on his lips before Tony silently takes Steve's hand in his own like he's trying to absorb the tremors. Warmth floods into his veins, and Tony's looking at him like he just broke his heart, and--

"Steve," Tony says, in a voice so solid that it gives away nothing, "did you-- were there really no other options, no ways you could've survived, when you crashed the plane into the ice?"

"I plead the fifth," says Steve, with the ghost of a smile. 

"You're not on trial," Tony tells him with a frown. "I don't... I'm not blaming you, just trying to understand."

"Understand how somebody who's supposed to be a leader is weak enough to want to blow his brains out every night?" Steve asks, and it's not like he'd grudge Tony for believing that. He does. And Tony's always had high expectations of him, had admitted this to him, even, and Steve wonders whether he would've idolized him as a kid if he'd known that the great Captain America was just as messed up as anyone else, possibly even more. (Probably not. Definitely not). 

"What? Steve-- you think, you really think that's what I think of you?" Tony asks quickly, and Steve can feel him grow rigid beside him. "God,  _no_ , Steve. If anything... that makes you even stronger."

"That's stupid," Steve tells him plainly. "Means I'm a risk to the team. To the world."

"I'm the resident genius, remember? So let me be a judge as to what's stupid and what isn't," Tony says resolutely. "I don't care about the world, or whatever. I care about you, and how you've apparently been suicidal for years and not told anybody."

"Not true," he points out. "I told you."

Tony lets out a long breath. "And I'm glad you did, even if I'm doubting your mental health even  _more_ because of that, I mean-- I'm probably the worst person on the team to talk to."

"You listened," said Steve, without the energy to properly argue. "That's enough."

"No," said Tony, a hint of anger beginning to rise to the surface and causing Steve to want to flinch away if not for the fact that their hands were still clasped together, "it's not. I'm not gonna let this go, okay? We're going to work through this, together, because you don't have to feel this shit all the time. You're the best person I know, strong and brave and all that good stuff, so-- we're going to fix this."

"You can't fix me," Steve tells him. "Wish you could, but you can't. 'M starting to think nobody can."

"That's not true," Tony says, and he finally manages to catch Steve's eye, and Steve is paralyzed beneath his stare. It's almost like he's frozen again, except Tony's anything but cold. Tony is warm beside him, his touch fiery on Steve's skin, and his eyes are molten with an emotion that he cannot name for the life of him. "Here's how this is going to work, okay, Steve?  _You're_ gonna fix you, and I'm going to be here all the way, whatever you need, distracting you when you can't sleep or forcing you to see every shrink in the city or talking you down from the ledge, if that's what it's gonna take."

Steve smiles up at the moon, and his grip goes slack in Tony's. "Yeah," he says distantly. "If you say so, Tones."

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Cough Syrup by Young the Giant (a great song, BTW). 
> 
> Anyway, thanks for reading! It's unedited because I was impatient, but I hope you liked it. My tumblr's prongsiest.tumblr.com if anybody's interested. :)


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